I was tucked away in bed getting ready to fall asleep when something in my head said, “Look over your news feed one more time.” I grabbed my phone, hit Facebook and scrolled through updates when I saw a friend post something about “KONY”. Unfamiliar with it, I decided to click on it and find out what the late night fuss was about when I was directed to a 30 minute video titled “KONY 2012” (below). God knows at 1:30 in the morning I had no plans to watch a 30 minute video on my phone but I gave it a chance. Unsure of the point of the film, I waited and waited and then like a ton of bricks I got the message loud and clear:

MAKE KONY FAMOUS!

The Background.
In the 30 minute film, you’re given access to activism at its finest. Director Jason Russell (right) introduces you to the unthinkable 26 year-long crime in Uganda carried out by Joseph Kony (above) and his rebel group the Lord Resistance Army (L.R.A.). Under Kony’s dictatorship, the army has kidnapped and brainwashed over 30,000 children, turning girls into sex slaves and boys into child soldiers who are forced to mutilate people’s faces and kill their own parents. Kony’s violent impact to the people of Uganda has been so severe that he is currently #1 on the International Criminal Court list of the world’s worst criminals based on the severity of his crimes. To bring it all home, Jason shows his friendship with a Ugandan teen named Jacob and the detrimental impact the L.R.A has had on his life. Jason promises to find a way to bring down Kony. That promise developed into an organization which Jason co-founded called Invisible Children and global movement known as KONY 2012.

KONY 2012

The Dilemma.
If more people in the world vocalized their desire to have Kony stopped, he would have been arrested by now. Even though the U.S. government is aware of Kony, they’ve remained at a distance to some degree since “our national security or interest is not at stake”. But human life is at stake. Think about this happening to your little siblings, cousins, children, or even you pet being abducted and placed in the same conditions as these kids. When the roles are switched and the scenario affects you, it becomes a problem. Jason explains it effortlessly by saying, “Where you live shouldn’t determine whether you live”. No longer waiting on the government, Individual Children and its supporters have made great strides to advance and protect Ugandan communities by building schools, creating jobs, and installing radio networks to update them in preparation for an attack. But it hasn’t been enough because Kony is remains and can still abduct children and kill innocent people. The only way to send troops into Uganda with the technology and equipment necessary to find and arrest Kony we must show that we want him to be stopped.

The Deal.
The only way to send troops to Uganda is to spread the word by joining the KONY 2012 global movement. I am beyond awestruck by this movement. With ‘life’ as the motivator of the campaign, KONY 2012 is a perfectly crafted global marketing campaign that some of the biggest brands couldn’t design let alone receive such engagement for people. It’s marketing and advertising that weaves into viral, grassroots, guerrilla, experiential, word of mouth, promotion, mobile, print, sales, non-profit, and interactive avenues. Invisible Children has hit it on the head in every medium and it is possibly the best of its kind. In its totality, this campaign has created a movement that has the potential to define a generation, end injustice, and rehabilitate lives.

Your Part.
In order to arrest Kony, you must show that you want him arrested by voicing your opinion. What makes this unique is that Invisible Children is asking you to make Kony famous in order to bring him down. While Invisible Children is targeting culture and policy makers like musicians, celebrities, and political figures to bring him down you can spread the word to your friends. In the hyper social media world that we live in today, you are an update, tweet, and hash tag away from getting the Kony message out to more people. Even better is that you can spread the movement everywhere you go by purchasing posters ($5, above) or the Kony 2012 Action Kit ($30) through the Invisible Children Store. The kit includes posters, stickers, buttons, a t-shirt and a Kony bracelet(left). All the work executed by the organization, myself, and of course you will come together one night in April.

Cover the Night Event.
On Friday April 20th, 2012 Invisible Children wants everyone to blanket every street in every city at sundown in the Cover the Night Event (below). As the world goes to sleep, supporters will stay out throughout the night covering their city with Kony paraphernalia so the world wakes up to their city standing up for a cause. This movement plans to create a flash mob, but realistically a flash mob is what you see in Times Square when Gap wants to show off their work out pants via dance. Instead I like to think of what the Invisible Children plan to do as a Blazing Horde!!! It will use as many people as possible to demand attention, action, justice all to make Kony famous.

Do It.
Kony must be made known worldwide and every blog post, status update, tweet, or conversation helps. If you can voice your opinion about your political beliefs or take a picture of your dinner, then you most certainly can devote your voice to make Kony famous.

Watch the film, become a part of the movement, and spread the word. I know I have and I will!

It’s award season and this year the award for best pre, during, and post advertising and marketing has to go to Chevrolet for all the work it did for its new Sonic. To introduce the new Sonic to the world, Chevrolet (owned by General Motors) created the Let’s Do This campaign that would show off the vehicles greatest features in extreme elements perfectly. The brains behind the brand and its San Francisco agency Goodby Silverstein & Partners (GSP) did just that—stunts. Such conditions included a 360 degree kick flip, bungee jumping, sky diving, creating an original music video, and a commercial put together just in time for the Super Bowl.

Sky Dive

Before many people knew much about the Sonic, Chevy made the executive decision to get your adrenaline running in preparation for the vehicle. Over the Arizona desert the Sonic was catapulted out of a plane went from 0 to 60mph in 0.4 seconds. Granted, seeing as we don’t get to monitor the speedometer it’s hard to confirm that. However, what you do see is the Sonic on an adventure that many people wish to take themselves. The underlying theme remains that with the Sonic, “the sky is the limit”.

Chevy Sonic “Sky Dive”

Bungee Jump

To create an interactive and viral initiative for the Sonic, Chevy went to GSP, Synn Labs, and Motion Theory. In Long Beach, the companies created the Bungee Jump which placed a Sonic atop of a 90 foot tall container structure. Engineered by the power of Facebook, followers of the Chevy Sonic’s Facebook page could like the initiative to launch it off the platform. 9 hours and 2.5 million clicks later the car was propelled off the containers and the rest was exactly what you would expect: a car bungee jump.

Chevy Sonic “Bungee Jump”

Sonic Kick Flip

On December 17 Jeff Goodby of GSP alongside his team executed another event for the Sonic. Chevy pulled pro skater Rob Dyrdek to apply his talents to the Sonic at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia, CA. Since the pro stunt man has a keen eye for adventure and an old school love for all things Chevy, the relationship was a done deal. Kevin Mayer, director of Chevrolet advertising and sales promotion explained: “With his outrageous personality and his willingness to try any adventure once, Rob Dyrdek was the perfect match for the Sonic and our ‘Let’s Do This’ campaign,”. During the event, Rob effortlessly pulled off a 360 degree rotation over the world’s largest skateboard in front of an audience. Both Rob and the car landed safely and in that moment the best kick flip was made. To add to the publicity of the event, the flip was filmed for the season five premiere of Dyrdek’s “Fantasy Factory”.

To read everything about the event, check out the press release behind it.

Further building into the campaign that Chevy created for the 2012 Sonic comes three additional portions. Starting with…

The World’s Largest Claw Game

Executing pieces of the campaign in Arizona and Long Beach, the Sonic’s next part took place at The Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Coined as “The World’s Largest Claw Game”, the game was exactly what the title conveys. Conceived in 2010, the game was inspired by the old school games that you find in grocery stores and arcade joints. As the world’s largest interactive 3D projection, participants had the chance play the game by pressing the gas pedal control and a joystick in the shape of the gear shift. Players could win any prize they grabbed including anything from an HD camera to an actual Sonic. The beauty of the game is that “when someone grabs the car and wins it in the digital world….it goes through this prize shoot and comes out the bottom of the building [is] a real live Chevy Sonic.” This game is amazing because it takes the Sonic directly to its potential consumers, gives people the chance to interact with the product, and lets them win exciting prizes!

Chevy Sonic: The World’s Largest Claw Game

OK GO Music Video

With work on the virtual and interactive side on deck, the Sonic’s next maneuver was to create a musical initiative. Working with the Grammy award winning Chicago band OK Go for their song “Needing/Getting” the boys went to make a music video where they sang the music while the Sonic played the instruments. Driving on top of keys, banging on the piano, and strumming guitars the Sonic appears to be a musical genius. The best part of this is that you can download the song for free. Thanks Chevy, you exactly what I want!

“OK Go – Needing/Getting – Official Video”

Super BowlCommercial
The final piece to the campaign is the 2012 Super Bowl XLVI commercial that pieced together the prominent components of the Let’s Do This campaign. In the 1 minute spot, Chevy gives you the best parts to its campaign on top of the track “We Are Young” by Fun. ft. Janelle Monae. I actually only found out about this song thanks to Chevy (thank you by the way) and I absolutely love it! It’s a perfect anthem to narrate the stunts and an even better addition to my iTunes library.

Today when the biggest football game of the year is in full swing people will anxiously await to see which team wins and if the half-time performance will live up to its hype. However, seeing as you’re reading this blog you’re probably interested in seeing which commercials will be worth skipping the bathroom run. Considering the Super Bowl is the biggest stage for a brand to reach an audience, brands are dropping up to $6 million dollars for 30 to 60 seconds of your attention. That would include Chevrolet, PepsiCo, Coca Cola, Skechers, GoDaddy.com, and others. Instead of creating a Super Bowl commercial in house or through an agency, Doritos (owned by Frito-Lay) let consumers take a swing at it, all in hopes of winning a seriously grand prize.

As an official sponsor of the NFL, Doritos started the Crash the Super Bowl in 2007 which has quickly become an amateur director’s dream. In the contest directors create a Doritos commercial to compete against other submissions in hopes of receiving the most votes by consumers. Out of this year’s 6,100+ submissions, 5 madeit to round two where they received $25,000, a trip to Indianapolis to attend the game, and the chance to move to the final round. Out of the top 5 ads, only the top 2 rated ads will air during the Super Bowl and the directors will find out who made it with everyone else—during the game. Out of the two ads, to determine the grand prize winner, the ad that receives the #1 spot on USA Today’s Ad Meter (or the USA Today’s Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter) will win (Dr. Evil voice) $1 MILLION DOLLARS!!! (Clears throat) Not stopping there, the winner will also get to work creatively with The Emmy Award winning trio The Lonely Island. It’s quite possibly the best avenue for a director to showcase his work to an eager audience, display his capabilities to prospects, add a major name to his client list, and free himself from a freelancer’s rate. And if you think the ad will only air during the game think again—it’ll run for weeks following and be featured on news networks and magazines (i.e. Advertising Age). The director’s work and name will be everywhere and the publicity will be life changing at the least.

For an ad that doesn’t get the million dollars, there’s still a prize that I’m sure will suffice. The ad that ranks #2 and #3 on the USA TODAY Ad Meter or the USA TODAY Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter will receive $600,000 and $400,000 respectively. (Makes me wish I were a talented director.) But why use this meter and not say…YouTube? Simply because since starting in 1989, the USA Today meter is considered to be the most influential Super Bowl rating system in the ad industry. It “tracks the second-by-second responses of a panel of viewers to ads during the national broadcast of the Super Bowl and ranks them favorite to least favorite” (-Doritos press release). So it’s reliable, unbiased, and the decision maker for the contest.

For the past few weeks, the web was going b-a-n-a-n-a-s and cray with the viral videos “Sh*t That (Specific Type of People) Say”. If you were unaware of the videos and the flux of reposts, then I suggest you crawl from the rock you’ve been under and take a gander at some of them. Since starting early in December Kyle Humphrey and Graydon Sheppard’s “Sh*t Girls Say” series show the most common (and often annoying) things women say. With Graydon Sheppard dressed as a woman and featuring actress/singer Juliette Lewis, the videos have gained over 12 million views and have even been featured on shows like E! News. Not too shabby. With the immediate success of the original, everyone with a camera and an opinion wrapped in an inside joke has created a parody. Of all the spin offs available, some of my favorites include “Shit Black Girls Say”(5.6 million views), “Shit White Girls Say…to Black Girls” (7.2 million views), “Shit Spanish Girls Say” (3.3 million views), and “Sh*t Nobody Says” (4.9 million views). “Why are they so popular” you ask, because they carry a great deal of truth based on personal experience and they’re pretty funny. It’s a no brainer

Seeing as there have been videos about single girls, douchebags, Jamaican parents, and so on it was only a matter of time before the ad world hopped on. Enter from stage right, “Sh*t Project Managers Say” (below) and “Sh_t Media People Say” (below) created by Chicago’s own Spark Communications. From the conference calls, budget meetings, meltdowns, departmental jargon, client discussions and user errors the videos take you on a hyper-erratic day in the life of the person who connects the client and the agency and the media maven. Not too far off if I may say so myself. Part of me laughs at the videos simply because I’ve said some of the phrases and have sat in similar meetings. But then again, it’s not so funny when you’re up at 3am prepping for a client meeting and the Red Bull isn’t kicking in. Hmm, it’s like they know me…